Headdesk Moment

[soc_puppet]

So my roommate J is back from seeing her family/hometown friends over American Thanksgiving. And she wanted to tell me some funny stories about it! (I, on the other hand, never left the area, and just didn't tell any stories on the internet, like a champion. Let's go play the Not Update Game! Anyhow, back on topic.)

The first story she told was about how her best friend imitated a dog while her cats were in the same room, and they didn't want much of anything to do with said friend after. One of the cats even growled. Which is amusing enough, I suppose.

[TW for transphobia/homophobia] And then the second story she told was how she saw a former co-worker performing in drag at a gay bar. And it was awkward for her, because it was a guy she had worked with wearing a dress.

Let me get into a bit more detail. She went out of her way to specify multiple times that she was uncomfortable because it was a man she knew out of drag and who was wearing a dress, and even suggested that it was because he was presenting more femininely than she believes she ever could.

She was not uncomfortable because she saw someone she had once worked with in an entirely different (but still completely normal and acceptable) setting than she was used to interacting with him in, or because she had learned something new that she hadn't expected about said former coworker, and she now had to reconcile this new information with her out-of-date impression of him. No, she was uncomfortable because he was a man wearing a dress and she knew him outside of dress-wearing situations.

I couldn't even think of anything to say to that aside from non-committal "I'm listening to this" sounds. I mean - what? Is it just me, or is there a smidge of implied homophobia/transphobia there? She was perfectly comfortable with him until she saw him wearing a dress and being okay with it?

I just. Is this like those times when she feels the need to tell me that she just found out one of her bosses is a Lesbian - oh, and she used to sing in the Quire, but way long ago, so I probably don't know her? (That's. Nice, I guess? I'm glad she's comfortable with who she is and had a good time in the Quire?) Or is it like the time when she thought I would be interested to know that her best friend was getting an abortion because I'm a feminist? (At that time, I pretty much said, "I'm glad she lives in a place where she has access to a legal healthcare procedure" or somesuch, and eventually it dissolved into a conversation about abortion rights and choice and the revelation that my roommate is at least somewhat anti-choice. I don't remember all the details, but wow, that really set my head spinning right before work. I mean, cis-women get abortions sometimes! I imagine that trans-men get abortions as well, not to mention other female-bodied people who don't necessarily fall into socially accepted gender-presentation categories. I should be interested in this specific instance... why?)

Sometimes I feel like I need to sit her down for some 101, but I don't know if I have the time or energy to devote to how long that would take. On the one hand, it took me a month (and, in the end, over an hour of sitting right next to her and guiding her hands and explaining over and over with different words) how to crochet a chain stitch. On the other hand, once she got that, she picked up basically every other crochet stitch/technique she could find a YouTube video for without much effort (with the exception of the magic ring, so far). On the other other hand, that's even when she was interested in learning to crochet, and I can't say the same of her and, say, abortion rights.

In the end, I suppose that I'm just not interested in a lot of things she wants to talk about that she thinks I would be interested in, and I just feel like saying something more when she's being offensive.

...While I'm at it, Privilege Is: Being able to let her walk away from a conversation like that. Which I guess I will be confronting tomorrow, but privilege still allows me to do so at a later time, rather than lay awake for hours upon hours, worrying what she would say about me if she unexpectedly saw me dressing in drag about town or something. Now I guess I just need to figure out what exactly to say/how to approach this =_=

Comments

[mommy]

That does indeed read like she has a bias or ten somewhere. Anti-choice is never pretty to have shoved into your face, and neither is transphobia.

I'd vote for watching some movie or other that happened to have trans persons in it, but the media doesn't handle the topic very well at all.

[soc_puppet]

Yeah, she's. Not entirely un-progressive, especially with regard to her own issues. I mean, she's Jewish, from a poor family, a woman, and one of her brothers has Downs' Syndrome, so she's all for separation of religion and state, welfare/taxing the rich more than the poor, womens' rights (on the surface), and is anti-ablism, but. Other than that, she can be downright fauxgressive sometimes :/

I mean, she's in the Quire with me and my mom, so that ostensibly means she's for gay rights, but then she. Tells me every time she finds out someone she knows is gay? Because I guess she thinks I'd be interested because I'm bi or something? (And this could well be part of that whole "Forgetting the 'T' in LGBT[QIA]" thing, which is remarkably and disgustingly pervasive.) And she's not entirely anti-choice, she's just, "I think women should not be able to treat abortions as an alternative to birth control" is a little... (I admit, I slipped up there, and had to come back and tear down that straw woman after work, and then point out things like [TW for domestic violence] abusive husbands/boyfriends who control a woman's access to birth control [/TW] and access issues and stuff.)

It's frustrating, is all. IDK, maybe I'll just be all, "About that story you were telling me last night. No, not the one about your cats..." But her issues sound pretty deeply entrenched, and she's not going to change unless she wants to, which. Is really not a vibe I'm getting from her :[

Lolsob to the media thing, as well X( Maybe if I introduced her to Venus Envy (the comic strip, not the book)...?

[dogmatix]

...now I have this faint urge(becuase I obviously do not have enough to occupy my time ORZ ) to incorporate trans/drag/etc as a point in a new story idea. Along with the idea of matriarchal-line surnames (like, Suzie Jones Carmon, where she gets Jones from her dad, and it changes when she marries to her husband's patriarchal name, but she gets Carmon from her mom, and keeps it her entire life, and gives it as a permanent matriarchal surname to her daughter(s) and a temporary matriarchal surname to her son(s). And it works the same way for guys. It's really easy once you get the hang of it, and it cuts out a loooot of bother for Suzie in a marriage/divorce situation, since 'Suzie Carmon' would be the permanent use-name. ..er, tldr? ^^;)

[soc_puppet]

Gawd, I so feel you on that ^^a Every time I learn something new, I feel like the potential world building of any given story expands by a factor of ten. And then of course I have to do research to get it right, etc etc spiraling out of control.

Ooo; quite intriguing, totally did read. Sounds like that world has a more even-minded take on gender in general - though does the woman's partner also take her name when they marry? I figured it would probably work that way for same-sex couples (assuming they're allowed to marry, which, if assumed better gender equality is true, seems somewhat likely, since homophobia is tied at least in part to misogyny) which only left me wondering why it wouldn't also work that way for heterosexual couples. ...I totally just followed up your tldr with my own, er ^^a

[dogmatix]

*g* Yep, it does work the same way for guys. Say you have Suzie Jones Carmon's brother, Gary, but he's Gary Carmon Jones, because 'Jones' is his dad's permanent, patriarchal surname. So, when he marries, he gets to be Gary Cooper Jones, and his sons are Cooper Jones, while his daughters are Jones Cooper, where 'Cooper' is the mom's permanent, matriarchal surname. =^___^=

There's still some scope for lineage loss if you don't have kids or only have kids of a single sex, and homosexual partnerships make things interesting because then the lineages start crossing and it's likely to be adopted kids anyway. Probably you'd have something like the Japanese clan system (I'd say Scottish or something but I'm not as familiar with that *sheepish*), which has some downsides, but in general yeah, more even-minded take on gender.

Hmmmm. And now I'm wondering if I can incorporate it into my oni-samurai sci-fi plunnie.

[soc_puppet]

*Kermit!flail* That is just so nifty! I wish we could have that sort of system in our world.

[redsixwing]

All these comments have been fascinating, and thanks for the tip for Venus Envy, which ate my brain for like five hours last night. ^^

Sounds like the person in the post does have some stuff to work through, yes. Urgh. =/

[soc_puppet]

Delighted to spread the Venus Envy love ;) The creator also has Shakesville linked as a blog she reads ^_^

Yeah. Just. Yeah. I had Round One of Confronting J's Institutionalized Transphobia yesterday, and it did not go as well as I would like =_= I think "institutionalized" is the word I want there...

[redsixwing]

I just wish it had not had a giant update hole since, like, March. And what a place to leave it, argh!

But such is the way of webcomics, and I look forward to more, if and when it should be forthcoming.

Uuuurgh. I hope you have the strength to do what is needful. (Sorry, can't think of a better blessing/best wish just now.)

[soc_puppet]

Yeah, ditto :/ Still, it's not like I can complain too much, what with that one fic I haven't updated in, like, two years now ^^;;;

Thanks. I'll see my way to doing more about that soon-ish, I think. (Seems like a pretty good blessing/wish to me. And it's definitely appreciated ♥)

[ysabet.livejournal.com]

Suggestion? (And this is just me, half an hour past waking up and with no caffeine in me yet, so take it for what it's worth) --Write out what you want to say and email it to her. You're excellent with words, and it not only cuts to the chase, it keeps voice-tone and volume from interfering with clarity. AND she can go back to it and reread it. If you think she'll give your words an honest view, write 'em out.

Just a thought. Works for me sometimes much better than speaking things; for one thing, if you say something badly you can catch it and fix it before you send it out. Good luck; this reminds me way too much of conversations I have with my older sister sometimes. There's things we can talk about... and then there's everything else, which boils down to just NO (homosexuality, religion and politics.)

[soc_puppet]

Whoops, looks like it's a little late now ^^;;; If the "open with a talk about institutionalized -isms" method doesn't work too well, I'll definitely give that a shot.

Yeah, last year my nuclear family visited my mom's relatives for a combination her birthday/Thanksgiving celebration. Probably the only thing that kept us all peaceful was the "No Politics Talk What-So-Ever" rule ^^a (Where "politics" also covers religion and issues.)

[somegodstocking.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, it's stuff like this that have, to this day, kept me from being totally open about certain parts of my life. I don't know if that's privilege, necessarily...though at one point it could have been.


I just...don't have the patience to deal with this kind of thing. At all. So I commend you for trying (but then again, you live with this person...) I don't know, maybe it's just cowardly of me. But I am pretty much sick of trying to argue people out of their internalized prejudice. I've never been especially good at it.

[soc_puppet]

You know, I was this close to just letting it go, like so many other things in life. And then I scrolled down a bit in my journal. The last part of the entry right before this one is recognizing the Transgender Day of Remembrance. I just couldn't take that level of hypocrisy from myself: that I would promise to do my best as a cis ally and then, in the very next entry, blow off an opportunity to actually be an ally.

So it looks like I'm going to keep trying :Xa I'll probably print out Invisible Knapsack next, and request J read it in return the next time she asks me a favor. Or something similar, in an introduction-to-the-big-picture sort of way.